Today is the First Sunday of Advent, the start of a new liturgical year, and I am out of clever and insightful things to say about it this year. Maybe next year I’ll have better luck for a good post about it. In the meantime, though, I thought it would be a good idea to direct your attention to the St. Andrew Christmas Novena.

A novena is usually a prayer said once a day for nine days, and we get the nine days tradition from the Apostles, who spent nine days in the upper room waiting for the Holy Ghost. The St. Andrew Christmas Novena (which I’ll hereby be abbreviating as SACN) is different, though–it’s said fifteen times a day from November 30 (the feast of St. Andrew) to December 24. That’s a lot longer than nine days, so I don’t know how they can still call it a novena, but I don’t make the rules; I just report the facts.